Dear One and All,

I have been considering three passages of Scripture during the course of the summer, which seem to have something to say to me about our Circuit and its churches here in Plymouth.

The first is this: "without a vision, the people will perish" (Proverbs 29:18) Depending on which version of the Bible you use the word is either 'vision' or 'prophecy'. For me the terms are interchangeable and both are suitable to our context. For the Church to have meaning and expression and to speak to our present age there has to be a vision and that means the Church needs visionaries or prophets. The Church needs a vision of where Christ is calling the Church to be; to have a vision that is inspired by the Spirit of Christ and which encompasses God's plan for his kingdom. In short a vision which is Christ-centred, Spirit-breathed and obedient to the will of God.

I believe that in this year prophetic voices will confront the Churches in this Circuit and that there will be a creative outpouring of the Spirit which will challenge us all.

A friend of mine sent me a card and he had written on the card "Behold, I am making all things new.." (2.Cor.5:17) I felt there is a link here with the Scripture in Proverbs, for out of the vision will come new things and those new things will be a fresh ministry of Christ in the Church and beyond. It has made me realise that things do have to change and where God's Spirit is stifled by intransigence, arrogance or hardheartedness, then those places will simply be left behind and nothing new will happen. The Christ in which we believe is the Lord of the Resurrection, the Christ who is alive and the Church forms a fellowship of the community of the Resurrection. This grants us Grace, hope and the power of God's love in our mission and ministry.

Lastly, our membership tickets speaks of Paul's words to the church at Colossae(Col.1:17b) "In Christ, all things hold together". The vision and the promise of Paul's word in 2 Corinthians 5, hold together, for me at least, in the truth of our being held together and all things being held together in Christ. That holding together acknowledges the tensions and frictions of our situations, the limited understanding we all share and the imperfect vision of what we are called-to; but that it all coheres in Christ and it is solely in Christ that the Church must place its faith, through Christ that the Spirit of God will move and in the Christ of God's giving, that our churches will hold together to do the things of God in this age.

In the coming year let us see together how God will in Christ envision, equip and inspire his Church.

Every blessing,

Simon.

Revd Simon H Leigh
Superintendent Minister